His smile broke the kiss, both of us gasping for air with the reprieve. He took a step back, running a hand through his unkempt hair while I pressed mine to my swollen lips and tried to figure out how we’d gotten to this place where we kissed whenever we wanted and neither of us felt the need to ask permission.
The permission was already given. He had consent to kiss me as much as he wanted.
Praise hands emojis all day every day.
He pulled back and our gazes crashed together. There was something so deep in his gray eyes, something hidden but surfacing, open but not yet exposed.
“I like you a lot, Baptiste.”
His words were said in the richest, warmest tone. They shot straight to my heart and spiraled all the way down to my toes.
“I like you a lot too, Delane.”
“It’s different though, isn’t it?”
“What?”
“Us,” he said simply.
I held his gaze, but didn’t know what to make of his thoughts. “What do you mean?”
“Has it ever been like this for you? I mean, in a relationship?”
I hadn’t ever really been in a relationship before, so I wasn’t sure what to say. “No,” seemed like an honest-enough answer. “I’ve never felt like this about anybody before.”
One side of his mouth kicked up in a half-smile. “There’s something here,” he murmured, his eyes a stormy tempest of truth and raw honesty. “There’s something between us.”
My heart kicked in my chest, a jolt of surprise rocketing through me. “What do you mean?”
His head dipped and the other side of his mouth joined in a blinding, breathtaking smile. “I’m just saying I’m glad we’re together.”
If I thought my heartbeat was fast before, it tripled with those sweet words. My entire body felt like it was rushing and speeding and twirling out of control. I had so many emotions I didn’t know how to pick one as the most dominant. God, it felt good for him to say that, to say we were a couple. Like way, way good.
In a way I had never expected it to.
This man, that had been so completely annoying at first and then cocky and then just everywhere, had somehow turned into home for me. He’d gone from stranger, to friend, to my everything. And I wasn’t even sure how it had happened?
I certainly wasn’t looking for a serious relationship when Vann walked into my life. I wasn’t even looking for a non-serious relationship. I had just wanted to survive the day. And Bianca. And this life of mine that felt too much for me.
And yet, his careful approach had been exactly what I’d needed. All the different times he saved me and cared for me had taught me to trust him before we were even friends. Vann had proven what kind of man he was before he ever asked me out or kissed me or even slept with me—not that I had let us go all the way since that drunken rehearsal night… but it didn’t matter because apparently some sub-conscious part of my brain had already trusted him.
That was huge for someone like me. Someone whose trust had been so totally and wholly shattered. Someone who didn’t think she would ever get naked with a man again, let alone sleep with him… let alone give him all of her heart.
My past was separated from my present one day at a time. It was like tearing off wallpaper with a plastic fork. Slow, frustrating and time-consuming. But I was starting to see some progress. I was starting to differentiate between what happened one night at a party at some guy named Justin’s house, and the care and devotion of a committed relationship.
Even without considering the rape—which was nearly impossible to do—my dating back then had been random hookups and one-night stands. I would never, ever, ever, in a hundred million years, believe that I had somehow asked for that to happen to me. But I wasn’t dating the caliber of man I needed in general. I had been settling for second and third and fourth best.
I had been scared to be who I was. And because I couldn’t come to terms with the person I was, I let other people define me. I let them tell me who I was and what I wanted.
And in the middle of that sticky, ugly, broken mess, I’d been drugged. And raped.
This thing between Vann and me could not have been more different. He cared about me. He was committed to me. He went out of his way for me. And he was apparently going to be damn sure I could remember him if he ever decided to sleep with me again.
I loved the way he’d said it too. Because, yes, good grief, there was something about him I could not ignore. I was drawn to him, pulled in. I thought everything he said was funny and that he was maybe the most wonderful human on the planet.
It was sappy and mushy, and I’d totally sold out for love.
Yuck.
